Then it happened, as He was coming near Jericho, that a certain blind man sat by the road begging. 36 And hearing a multitude passing by, he asked what it meant. 37 So they told him that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. 38 And he cried out, saying, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”
39 Then those who went before warned him that he should be quiet; but he cried out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”
40 So Jesus stood still and commanded him to be brought to Him. And when he had come near, He asked him, 41 saying, “What do you want Me to do for you?”
He said, “Lord, that I may receive my sight.”
42 Then Jesus said to him, “Receive your sight; your faith has made you well.” 43 And immediately he received his sight, and followed Him, glorifying God. And all the people, when they saw it, gave praise to God.
Dear Jesus,
I admire the blind man's desperate persistence to get to You. Because of his desperate persistence, he made his way into Your Presence, and got results--healing. I want that same desperate persistence in prayer.
I remember the desperation with which my grandmother prayed. It was a desperation born out of desperate times. Her life was lived on the razor's edge of success or failure. Faith born in adversity adopts a certain rawness--a tone of urgency--that does not always resemble the emotion of more sophisticated, comfortable lifestyles. Often, the sophisticated try to restrain the desperate. My grandmother would not be restrained. You rewarded her desperation.
Like the blind man, I cry out to You in desperation. If You don't show up, disaster is certain. The blind man grew more persistent with each cry for Your mercy. His shouts became instinctive, "ungovernable emotion, a scream, an almost animal cry" (William Barclay in The Gospel of Luke, 1953, p. 242). The establishment was embarrassed. The refined rebuked him.
You stopped.
The blind man's "sense of need drove him relentlessly into the presence of Jesus" (Barclay, p. 242).
I need You to hear my wail for help. I need You to stop in Your tracks, and turn my way. I need to hear Your simple question, "What do you want me to do for You?" I need Your heart and hands to invade my life. I am that desperate blind man. I am the embarrassing one at the back of the crowd crying and screaming. If You don't stop, darkness and hopelessness are my sentence.
But in the darkness, the rebukes hush. The din of the crowd dies. I hear the sound of robed humanity rustling as people press and part, stepping aside. You approach. There You are! You just stepped into the emptiness of my need. Deity invaded desperation. Hope walked into hopelessness. Grace strode into godless desperation.
"What do You need?" You ask.
My need is apparent to all, yet You ask me to confess it to You! I could talk about my condition, my poverty, my own marginalization and ostracization from family and community. I could rage about the effects of my situation. I could talk about all of the symptoms and never get to the problem. But no. "I'm blind. I want to see!"
That is my need today. You call me to walk by faith and not by sight. But I'm blind. Give me eyes to see You in the midst of life's uncertainty, ambiguity, and adversity. If I can but see You, that is enough.
Thank You for hearing my cry. I see!
In the Name of the Christ of God who stops at my wailing and makes my blind eyes to see Him,
Amen.
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